2-Year Old Son of Vikings’ Peterson Found Dead

Eden Prairie, Minn. — Authorities say a 2-year-old has died of injuries suffered in an alleged child abuse case in South Dakota, and a person with knowledge of the situation tells The Associated Press the boy is the son of Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson.

Lincoln County State’s Attorney Tom Wollman confirmed the death of the child Friday. He had been in critical condition in a hospital with severe head injuries since Wednesday.

Peterson declined to talk about the case while at practice Friday, and prosecutors and police in South Dakota declined to confirm the boy was his son. However, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed the connection on condition of anonymity because Peterson had requested privacy in the matter.

A 27-year-old man, Joseph Patterson, has been charged with battery in the child’s death.

Jets TE Suspended

Florham Park, n.j. — New York Jets tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. was suspended without pay for four games by the NFL on Friday for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances.

Winslow, the team’s leading receiver with 17 catches, is immediately beginning his suspension, meaning he will sit out the Jets’ game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

The 30-year-old Winslow, in his first year with the Jets, has been dealing with a balky right knee all season that kept him out of practice all week. He hasn’t missed any games, though, and had two touchdown catches, including one in New York’s 30-28 victory at Atlanta on Monday night.

Suh Loses Appeal

New York — Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh lost an appeal of the $100,000 fine against him, taking a financial hit for a block below the belt.

Suh was fined for a sixth time in his four-year career on Sept. 10, two days after making an illegal block on Vikings center John Sullivan. He apologized to Sullivan, and to teammates for negating an interception return for a touchdown in Detroit’s season-opening win. A third-party arbitrator heard Suh’s appeal two-plus weeks ago.

Soccer

U.S. Blanks Jamaica

Kansas City, Kan. — Graham Zusi and Jozy Altidore scored second-half goals to give the United States a 2-0 victory over Jamaica on Friday night and clinch first place for the Americans in their World Cup qualifying group for the third straight cycle.

The sides had played to a stalemate through the first 77 minutes before Alejandro Bedoya got the ball on the wing. He crossed to Zusi, whose shot from about 12 yards beat goalkeeper DuWayne Kerr and ignited his home-team crowd of 18,467 decked out in red, white and blue.

Fans packed into Sporting Park had barely settled back down before Edgar Castillo, like Zusi a second-half substitute, found Altidore in front of an open net for another goal in the 81st minute. Altidore scored for his sixth straight international start.

The U.S. (6-2-1), which clinched its seventh straight World Cup berth last month, has 19 points and a four-point lead over second-place Costa Rica (4-2-3), which lost 1-0 at third-place Honduras (4-3-2).

Tennis

Djokovic, Nadal Advance

Shanghai — Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic overcame tough challenges in their quarterfinals at the Shanghai Masters on Friday and moved a step closer to a possible showdown in the final.

Top-ranked Nadal saved three set points and finally closed out a 20-minute tiebreak in the first set against Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka before winning 7-6 (10), 6-1.

Newark, Del. — Thaddeus Young had 20 points and five rebounds to lead Philadelphia over Bostont.

Spencer Hawes had 17 points and seven rebounds and Evan Turner added 12 points and eight rebounds for the Sixers, who won their first preseason game on this side of the Atlantic Ocean after playing two earlier this week in Europe.

Jared Sullinger had 19 points and nine rebounds for the Celtics, who dropped to 0-3 in the first preseason of coach Brad Stevens.

The Sixers opened an 18-point halftime lead as first-year coach Brett Brown’s starters were 21 of 30 from the field (70 percent) and accounted for 46 of the team’s 54 points.

The Celtics got within 84-79 on a 3-pointer by Gerald Wallace with 5:30 to play but never got any closer in the game played at the University of Delaware.